Feminist Reads

Books dedicated to feminist history and ideals.
Updated September 30, 2022
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The Feminine Mystique
Betty Friedan
Landmark, groundbreaking, classic--these adjectives barely do justice to the pioneering vision and lasting impact of The Feminine Mystique. Published in 1963, it gave a pitch-perfect description of "the problem that has no name": the insidious beliefs and institutions that undermined women's...
Feminism Unfinished: A Short, Surprising History of American Women’s Movements
Dorothy Sue Cobble
Eschewing the conventional wisdom that places the origins of the American women's movement in the nostalgic glow of the late 1960s, Feminism Unfinished traces the beginnings of this seminal American social movement to the 1920s, in the process creating an expanded, historical narrative that...
Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger
Rebecca Traister
***NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*** ***BEST BOOKS OF 2018 SELECTION BY*** * WASHINGTON POST * People * NPR * ESQUIRE * ELLE * WIRED * REFINERY 29 * "In a year when issues of gender and sexuality dominated...
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
Mikki Kendall
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "The fights against hunger, homelessness, poverty, health disparities, poor schools, homophobia, transphobia, and domestic violence are feminist fights. Kendall offers a feminism rooted in the livelihood of everyday women." --Ibram X. Kendi,...
Men Explain Things to Me and Other Essays
Rebecca Solnit
The National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author delivers a collection of essays that serve as the perfect "antidote to mansplaining" (The Stranger).   In her comic, scathing essay "Men Explain Things to Me," Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in...
The Second Sex
Simone de Beauvoir
The essential masterwork that has provoked and inspired generations of men and women. "From Eve's apple to Virginia Woolf's room of her own, Beauvoir's treatise remains an essential rallying point, urging self-sufficiency and offering the fruit of knowledge." --Vogue
Sex Object: A Memoir
Jessica Valenti
No longer maligned as a fascistic movement of man-haters or declared dead on national magazine covers, feminism is now the zeitgeist. Beyoncé calls herself a feminist in forty foot lights; democratic candidate Hillary Clinton stumps for women's rights on the 2016 campaign trail; and...
We Should All Be Feminists
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The highly acclaimed, provocative essay on feminism and sexual politics--from the award-winning author of Americanah "A call to action, for all people in the world, to undo the gender hierarchy." --Medium<...
Women, Race, and Class
Angela Y. Davis
From one of our most important scholars and civil rights activist icon, a powerful study of the women's liberation movement and the tangled knot of oppression facing Black women. "Angela Davis is herself a woman of undeniable courage. She should be heard."--The New York...
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Mary Wollstonecraft
Writing in an age when the call for the rights of man had brought revolution to America and France, Mary Wollstonecraft produced her own declaration of female independence in 1792. Passionate and forthright, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman attacked the prevailing view of docile, decorative...
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
Audre Lorde
Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature. "[Lorde's] works will be important to those truly interested in growing up sensitive,...
Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism
bell hooks
A classic work of feminist scholarship, Ain't I a Woman has become a must-read for all those interested in Black womanhood. Examining the impact of sexism on Black women during slavery, the devaluation of Black womanhood, Black male sexism, racism among feminists, and the Black woman's involvement...
Bad Feminist: Essays
Roxane Gay
"Roxane Gay is so great at weaving the intimate and personal with what is most bewildering and upsetting at this moment in culture. She is always looking, always thinking, always passionate, always careful, always right there."  -- Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be...
A Room of One's Own
Virginia Woolf
This annotated edition of the landmark inquiry into the women's role in society by one of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers, Viriginia Woolf's classic A Room of One's Own features an introduction by English and Women's Studies professor Susan Gubar, perfect for critical analysis in...
Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment
Patricia Hill Collins
In spite of the double burden of racial and gender discrimination, African-American women have developed a rich intellectual tradition that is not widely known. In Black Feminist Thought, originally published in 1990, Patricia Hill Collins set out to explore the words and ideas of Black feminist...
Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center
bell hooks
When Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center was first published in 1984, it was welcomed and praised by feminist thinkers who wanted a new vision. Even so, individual readers frequently found the theory "unsettling" or "provocative." Today, the blueprint for feminist movement presented in...

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